Wrath of the Void Strider (40 page)

Haley raced for a nearby set of stairs, springing along the steps to the catwalk.  She quickly deployed her sniper laser, as four others did the same at different points around the room.  “We’re in position,” she whispered into her headpiece and trained her scope on the door visible to her, far across the room.

Thundering booms sounded from the coils outside, and the power center was suddenly cast into complete darkness.  Strike team members activated vest lamps, got their bearings and spread out.  Into his headpiece, Brucker said, “The tower has been neutralized.  We’re ready for extraction.  Lock on my position.”

Captain Hull’s response was filled with static.

“I repeat—we’re ready for extraction.  Lock on my position.”

Again, Hull’s response was unintelligible.

Brucker watched an electrical charge snake, web-like, across the flooring.  Along the walls of the massive chamber, nine gray machines the size of refrigerators rose up from floor plates and began to hum.  Debris littered the room in smoldering heaps of varying heights and density.

“Stay sharp,” he said.

Suddenly, the front panel of a gray machine burst open, and a dark blur struck from within.  Clad in matte black body armor, his head encased in a featureless helmet, the ithiral warrior attacked with a blade so sharp it sundered Ajax’s hurricane blaster in two, just in front of the trigger guard.  Plasma spilled out like advancing lava and burned through the ground.

“
Kill them all
!” Brucker roared.

Ithiral warriors sprang from their pods, sweeping into the strike team, blades swinging.  Three of his soldiers fell as Brucker leveled his blaster at the warrior charging him.  He pulled the trigger, but the ithiral dodged the blast and instantly closed the distance to the strike team’s leader.

Brucker spit on his mask as the warrior reached back with his blade.  The side of the ithiral’s head spilled out onto the ground, however, a red lance drilled straight through it. Gasping, Brucker gratefully glanced up, found Haley, and she nodded.

Brucker’s troops desperately aimed their weapons and fired.  Integrated combat systems engaged blaster safeties as needed to prevent friendly fire.  In vain, they tried to track their stealthy foe, only to have barrels sliced from their stocks and limbs cut from their trunks.  The vaulted room filled with the screams of the wounded and dying.

Two members of the heavy fire team were cut down, and an ithiral warrior closed on a third.  Ajax slammed his ruined weapon into the swordsman’s back, drawing his attention as he howled.  The warrior spun on his heels, blade poised to strike.  His armor easily soaked the blows Ajax landed upon it.

“Shoot where I shoot,” said Valerie as she hurried to Ajax’s side and pressed her blaster barrel against the attacker’s chest.  She pulled the trigger.  The ithiral warrior lurched back and staggered before falling to the floor.  “I can immobilize them for a second or two.”

“You got it,” said Ajax, and he lifted a heavy blaster from a fallen squad mate.  She rested her arm upon Ajax’s, and he tracked her shots.  Blaster bolts streamed from their weapons, drilling a hole through the helmet of an approaching ithiral swordsman.

With an audible gasp, Ajax jumped as a warrior dropped from the ceiling, directly in front of them.  The blade whispered as he yelled and fired.  He crushed the trigger against its guard, even when the gun begged for a moment to recharge, and the chest of his opponent’s armor glowed white before peeling away.  Cauterized flesh and bone burst from the other side, and Ajax caught his breath.  He turned to Valerie, grinning.  “You alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”  She nodded toward the far door.

Ajax brought his blaster to bear on an ithiral as she leapt through the air.  From the corner of his eye, he spied his recharge indicator flashing red.  The attacker drew back her blade as Ajax squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened.  A rush of horror washed over him.

“Plunge your blade into your neck,” Valerie growled, and the warrior complied.

Ajax stepped back as his foe released her sword and toppled forward.  “Remind me never to piss you off,” he chuckled and dropped his emptied weapon.

Valerie said, “Behind you.”

Ajax pulled a hunting knife from his belt, spun and lunged to receive his enemy.  Savagely, he thrust his blade through a tiny gap in his opponent’s shoulder armor, down into the ithiral’s lungs.  The warrior gurgled and slumped, and Ajax claimed his enemy’s sword.  With a frenzied grin, he sliced off the ithiral’s head and charged into the fray.

Haley fired into the melee, striking an ithiral combatant.  Wounded, he drew a squad mate’s attention, and the pair of warriors faced her.  They sprang away from the soldiers they had been battling, their blades held high.  “Not good,” she whispered, and she hopped down to the ground as they raced up the steps.  Doubling back, they were upon her in a flash.  As the wounded warrior’s blade struck down, she met it with her rifle’s power core and danced aside.  She jammed the exposed white-hot core into her opponent’s thigh plating, and the ithiral howled in pain as it chewed through flesh and bone.  She plucked his sword from his grip, bounded away and landed atop a heap of debris near the front half of Ajax’s ruined weapon.

The remaining warrior advanced.

To the ithiral’s surprise, Haley leapt toward her enemy, blade in hand.  She dropped her sword in midflight, hooked the warrior’s neck in the crook of her elbow and bore him down into the pit of plasma left by Ajax’s bisected hurricane blaster.  She tumbled through the air and landed on the ground.

Instantly, the top half of her opponent burned away.

A single defender remained.  Silently, she disengaged and bolted with unnatural speed through the doors in the back.  Brucker gave chase, and his surviving team members raced after.  They followed the ithiral through the administration building, blasting as they ran, but she dodged and tumbled, avoiding every shot.

Valerie hurried to keep up.

Their opponent led them into a soaring hall, to a set of vaulted double doors that allowed passage into the beacon module.  She stopped and turned around.  Behind her, light ran up along the seam, and the doors swiftly and silently opened.  She stood defiantly in front of the exposed beacon chamber.

“Bye,” muttered one of Brucker’s soldiers, and he raised his blaster.

“Wait,” said Brucker.  “Don’t shoot!  Everybody, hold your fire!  That thing’s just standing there for a reason.”

Panting, Valerie caught up with the strike team.  Looking to the ithiral defender, she gasped, “On… your knees.”

In response, she disengaged her helmet’s seal and lifted it free.  She narrowed her eyes at Valerie.  “The corruptor has come,” she seethed, her mouth movements mismatched with her words.  “I can no longer hear your voice, corruptor.  I am protected by the righteous will of the guardian of this sacred chamber, and he will see you dead!”  Grinning, she crossed her arms and stepped aside as a deep thump rang out from the chamber beyond.

A looming shadow lumbered behind her.  Each footfall shook the ground.  Gears whirred, and air pistons hissed.  As tall as the towering doorway, a machine stomped into full view, standing upon broad, armored legs.  Its waist was connected to a massive throne dressed in holographic symbols.  At its base, bulky mechanical arms served as cannon mounts, and from its crown, a fractured black obelisk jutted straight up.  Seated within the throne, the ithiral guardian peered out upon Valerie and the strike team.  His hands rested upon control pads.  Dressed in gloss black robes with an upswept collar, he sat taller than most of his ithiral countrymen stood.  His clothing was trimmed with white.

“Open fire!” Brucker shouted, and his team unleashed the full fury of their weapons.  Blaster bolts and laser lances stopped well short of their target, however, banished by ithiral shields.

The juggernaut stomped closer, and the guardian raised his hand.  “Stop!” he boomed in English, and the ithiral warrior spun around to stare up at him.  Blasters and lasers continued to splash harmlessly upon the energy barrier.  Looking to the woman standing close by, he shook his head and said in Ithiral, “It has been decided by the High Council.  She is no corruptor.  She is the dreamer.”

“The… the dreamer?”

The guardian nodded remorsefully, and the warrior looked stricken.

Brucker faced Valerie.  “What are they saying?”

“I think he’s about to surrender.”  Her heart pounded as the guardian turned to her.  She held his humbled gaze, and Brucker called for a cease-fire.  She stepped forward, standing beside the crestfallen warrior.

In Ithiral, the guardian said, “I don’t have the authority to surrender for our people.  Only our Grand Ecclesiarch retains that honor.  But on behalf of the ithiral people whose minds you’ve touched, I beg your forgiveness, though I expect no mercy in the face of such great offense.”  The machine in which he sat fell quiet, and he climbed down from the throne, dropping to his knees at Valerie’s feet.

Desperately, she glanced to Brucker.

Solemnly, he nodded toward the guardian and gave her an unconcerned thumbs-up.

She frowned and looked back to the ithiral supplicant. 
What would you say, Gavin?
  She rested her hand upon the guardian’s horns.  He twitched and tensed at the contact.  Clearing her throat, she nodded and lifted her hand.  Nodding again, she set it back down and thinned her lips.  “It’s good to seek forgiveness.  Seek it every day from everyone you’ve wronged.”  She squeezed one of his horns, and he yelped.  “Today, I forgive you.  Tomorrow, you may ask again.”

Tearfully, the guardian bowed forward, touched his forehead to Valerie’s boots, and he wept.  “I will, and on every day that follows.”

·· • ··

High overhead aboard the
Wraithfin
, the bridge crew hurried to restore power to the shields.  It was a slow motion dance of shouts, fear and resolve.  The damage she had taken from the ithiral battle station was more extensive than initial reports had indicated, and her thrust core was slow to come back online.

Zerki crouched beside Gavin, cradling his head.  She watched as the ithiral fleet drifted into firing range.  Gazing upon her Navigator, she whispered, “I’m sorry, Gavin.”  Holding him tightly, she hissed, “I’m sorry.”  Tears splashed into his hair as she closed her eyes.

The communications officer yelled, “Captain Hull!  Captain, an enemy battle station is hailing us!”

Zerki opened her eyes.  She whispered, “What?”

“Main screen!” barked Hull, as he stood hunched over his station.  “Put it through, put it through!”

Ithiri’on appeared onscreen, huge compared to those around him.  He sat within a geometrically ornate throne.  Behind him, a dark obelisk rose from his seat, dressed in brilliant holographic symbols.  He leaned forward and spoke sternly in Ithiral.

Hull looked to Zerki.  “What’s he saying?”

She shook her head and glanced around.  “Get me a first aid kit!”  She lay Gavin back down and shifted to her knees as the tactical officer hurried to her side with the kit.  She retrieved smelling salts, tore open the packet and waved it under Gavin’s nostrils.  He gasped awake and sat upright, rubbing his nose and wagging his head.  It took a moment for his stupor to pass.

Ithiri’on repeated himself, his voice agitated.

“Hold on,” muttered Gavin.  Woozily, he blinked as the ospyrean helped him to his feet.  He glanced to the view screen as he leaned against the bridge railing, and he frowned.  “You again?”

Ithiri’on smiled humbly at seeing Gavin.  “The philosopher,” he breathed.  “As Grand Ecclesiarch of the
Draconian
, and on behalf of my people, I wish to surrender to you.  It would be my great honor and privilege to formalize it in person, though I expect no mercy in the face of such great offense.”

Squinting, Gavin studied his expression.  “You’re serious.”

“I understand your doubt, philosopher, and my shameful actions have warranted it.  My life is forfeit, should you deem it a fit payment for my transgressions.”  He pressed his colorful pistol against his neck, and the power meter began to charge.

“Stop that,” Gavin sighed.  “Just… put the gun down.”  He glanced to Zerki briefly and slowly shook his head.  “I, uh, accept your surrender.  Send someone over in a few hours to sign some papers.”  He sagged over the rail for a moment and held the sides of his head.

“My gratitude is endless, philosopher.  I know you have much to teach us.”

The view screen went dark.

“Captain Hull,” said the scanning officer, “they’ve lowered their shields!”

“Santiago, did I hear you right?” asked Hull.  “Did you just accept their surrender?”

Suddenly, the
Puerto Rico
’s main cannons started hitting their mark.  She was joined by the remaining warships as they ripped into the outer hulls of ithiral battle stations.  There were few missiles left to fire, but every one streaked through the void, striking its target.

Leaning over the comm, Hull said, “All starships, disengage!  All starships, disengage and move to the rally point!”

The fleet commander demanded, “Captain Hull, explain yourself!”

“Sir, they’re trying to surrender!”

A pause followed, and the
Wraithfin
’s bridge crew watched an ithiral battle station break up completely.

“By God, I think you’re right.”  On all channels, the fleet commander issued the order to fall back to the rally point.

Heedlessly, many of the Union’s warships continued their onslaught.

“I said fall back!” barked the fleet commander.  “Everyone, hold your fire!”

Several starships disengaged, but dozens ignored the order.  The
UNSS Indiana
moved into position between the
Draconian
and the destroyers of Pegasus Fleet.  She took several direct hits before the rest of the Star Fleet at last silenced their guns.

Chapter 26

Gavin stared up at the ceiling of the
Wraithfin
’s medical bay.  The air was cool and dry, and the walls were bright with patient monitor readouts.  He still felt a bit woozy, and nausea surged every time he moved his head too quickly.  Zerki approached, and the queasy feeling rallied as he turned to regard her.